beginnings
by spazmoid
Summary: after the first i-love-you falls from my cracked lips in a rush of clumsy syllables his gentle smile replies with a soft "i know" (( this is a poem. ))


.12.  
at dinner i tell my mother  
about a dark-haired, dark-eyed dolphin  
that never, ever smiled  
although he has everything  
i ever wanted  
even a too-tall boy-mother who smells like chlorine

at night i open my journal  
and i write about that too-tall boy  
that too-nice boy  
and i write how i think he should smell like tangerines  
and peaches  
and every sweet thing  
because that is how he acts

at bedtime when i close my eyes  
i think to myself if i had that too-tall boy  
i would never be able to stop smiling  
like how i smile  
when he is in my dreams

at the airport my mother cries as gou hugs her leg and waves  
and i can remember the bricks laid out around the cherry tree i left behind  
but i refuse to cry until i have my unattended minor task  
and the letters glare at me and i turn that unattended  
to alone

.13.  
in australia its too hot, too humid  
too lonely  
and i miss three boys i never really got to know all that well  
and i wonder if the dolphin still swims  
and does the too-nice giant still cry and hide it  
and has the grasshopper grown into his wings  
and i wonder what they would say  
if they found out i stopped dreaming  
after those first dozen races  
i wonder, if he, that too sweet boy,  
would feed me sweet words as sweet as his smile  
and would the dolphin call me stupid  
and whether the grasshopper would cry

in the letters he sends me  
i find my answers  
he sneaks them into care packages along with glass jars of kimchi  
and hair ties i only wear when no one is looking  
(not that anyone ever does)

in my bed, hidden under my covers  
is the only time i allow myself to cry  
over the letters, the homesickness, the everything  
and i keep all the memories taped inside and scrawled in journals  
but never look at them again  
just sit them under my pillows  
as i try to forget everything i remember  
(like tangerines, like chlorine, like gentle giants)

.14.  
i do not know when i started puberty  
but i can see the teeth growing in  
and my voice cracks  
over my already fumbling english tongue  
and i cannot help but think  
that this just gives everyone else  
more reason to avoid me  
and

i do not know when i first began to grow bitter  
but i think it began when he stopped sending letters  
after a year of going unanswered  
and i am still too afraid  
to ever lift a pen  
and ask him to send them again  
because i need them  
oh god  
i need them

.15.  
i sit in the bath and i wonder what it would feel like  
to fall under  
if that is what dad felt like losing himself to the sea  
or was it the ocean  
i cannot remember  
i just know i want to be swallowed whole  
by the green-tinted waters  
that fill the cracking porcelain tub

i sit and i think of being lost  
within the watery nothing  
that has so much in common in what i've become  
i think "does it really burn that much?"  
when it slips down my throat to fill my lungs  
or does the pain dull after a while  
into nothing but (heart)ache

i sit on my bed and i think  
of three smiles pointed around me  
and a camera in between my sister's prepubescent hands  
and how she is not gou anymore  
only kou  
i almost laugh on what i miss(ed)  
and i want to cry  
i can feel the burning behind my lids  
only nothing comes  
just empty  
nothingnothingnothing  
just like me

.16.  
i leave australia without telling anyone  
i just want to be invisible  
another piece of static lost within the white noise of life  
and focus on  
not swimming

i leave my roommate  
constantly fretting over me  
and i think that he can be a bother  
but he reminds me too much of a blond boy with pink eyes  
to push away  
so i let him bring me things i never really ask for  
and let him bother me as he sees fit  
(if he gets too annoying  
i can always lock myself in the bathroom  
and wonder  
again)

.17.  
when gou finds out i am back in japan  
she cannot stop leaving messages on my phone  
although i never answer  
despite how much i want to  
meet her and forget  
about the bitterness  
that has managed to sink into my very everything  
and coats my every thought  
like how

when i see them together  
the too-tall boy and the dolphin  
it hurts so much  
like drowning in something terrible  
and heavy  
that just drags me farther down  
down  
down

when i feel the bad escaping my mouth  
like air bubbles from blue-kissed lips  
venomous words touch sensitive ears  
although i am not sure exactly what i am saying  
i can see hurt dim his peridot eyes  
to the darkest shade  
and i turn from them choosing to swim  
and forget  
but the pool is empty  
just like the rest of me  
and the dug up box  
full of long-dead memories

when he calls me  
i am not expecting it  
but i want to store away his voice  
to go with the words of the letters  
and i wonder if just maybe  
gou found out my secret despite how much i tried to hide it  
behind sharp words, sharp teeth, and a sharp heart  
and i wonder if i am truly angry  
and i decide that maybe swimming will not be too bad  
if not just to feel the water again  
and forget

when i stop trying to forget  
it is when he breaks the surface of the water  
and i watch him,  
dynamic and so very _there  
_wordless but screaming  
for me to notice him again  
and i remember everything  
all at once  
bits and pieces falling from the puzzle box i had stored away

when he messages me that next time  
after the meet and the competition  
that my team lost but i won  
i find myself looking at the message  
and storing it with the others  
but this time i reply to his 'good job'  
and we end up talking the entire night

.18.  
after the first i-love-you  
falls from my cracked lips  
in a rush of clumsy syllables  
his gentle smile replies  
with a soft  
"i know"  
and he laughs and tells me  
i have never been all that subtle  
before silencing any arguments i have  
with his lips

(after that  
everything falls together  
like peaches and cream  
like bitter coffee meeting sweet chocolate  
and i find out that being with him  
is even sweeter  
than i have ever imagined)


End file.
